Presidential race still a toss-up
Obama still has the edge in battleground states
Polls released in the coming days should tell the real story of the winners and losers of the second presidential debate. And although polls released yesterday (Thursday) continued the uneven trend – some saying Romney was ahead and others with President Obama in the lead – almost all showed Obama leading in battleground states.
Two new NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist College polls gave President Barack Obama comfortable leads in two battleground states, Iowa and Wisconsin, while a new Gallup Daily tracking poll gave Republican nominee Mitt Romney a 7-point lead nationwide. Not surprisingly, another dozen or so polls conducted nationally and in key states found results somewhere in between.
Four national daily tracking surveys showed a closer race, with results ranging from a 2-point Romney edge to a 3-point Obama advantage.
Within swing states, the two new NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls show Obama leading by comfortable margins – 8 percentage points in Iowa (51 to 43 percent) and 6 points in Wisconsin (51 to 45 percent). Both states are critical for Obama given the close contest nationwide and narrow Romney leads in states like Florida and North Carolina.
But if Gallup’s most recent surveys of likely voters have shown a pronounced “house effect” favoring Romney nationwide, the NBC/WSJ/Marist polls tend to skew in the opposite direction, favoring Obama. In Iowa, for example, the last two NBC/WSJ/Marist polls have been among the best for the President. Other recent Iowa polls also show Obama ahead, though by narrower margins.
In Wisconsin, the NBC/WSJ/Marist poll was also the best for Obama since the first debate, although here the cell phone factor may not explain the difference. Although a survey conducted just before the second debate by the Marquette University Law School that called both cell and landline phones showed Obama with a mere 1-point edge over Romney (49 to 48 percent).
Eight other new polls released on Thursday from seven battleground states found more of a mix of results. Except for a Rasmussen Reports automated survey in North Carolina and a Republican-sponsored poll in Pennsylvania (by a pollster with results that have consistently skewed in Romney’s favor), the new surveys all gave Obama nominal leads.
Obama continues to lead by statistically meaningful margins of 2 percentage points or better in states like Ohio, Nevada, Wisconsin and Iowa. These states would combine to give Obama a total of 277 electoral votes (seven more than needed to win) when combined with other states showing him leading by larger margins.
In addition, the tracking model continues to show Obama with narrower advantages in New Hampshire and Colorado, but tied or slightly behind in Virginia, Florida and North Carolina.
The new polls are just beginning to capture sentiment measured after the second debate. New surveys released over the weekend should clarify if the president got the much-needed bounce he sought from his much better performance in the recently completed second debate.
Alvaro F. Fernandez
